By Whim of Hecate
by snowflake07
Summary: "That which was flavored with reluctance was never as sweet as that which was freely given," or so Ulquiorra thought. Everything changed when he became her guardian. Now here he is at the crosscroads of the night.


Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

Warnings: Character Death

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><p><strong>By Whim of Hecate<strong>

Orihime Inoue

The woman had been an enigma to him since she had come to Heuco Mundo. She never behaved in the manner he expected. She hadn't treated any of the Espada as an enemy. Yet he knew she was afraid, indeed he watched the tremors wrack her body during a meeting with Aizen and the other Espada though her face had never changed. She was always calm, always collected. She had never made an attempt to distance herself as was logical for a person in her situation.

He knew she cried at night, both while awake and in her sleep. And for some reason he could not fathom, she spent her waking hours ridiculously contemplating the moon in the artificial sky. He'd catch himself wondering what he would see if he saw that moon through her eyes. Why was she so transfixed on that single object? Her response to her situation irritated him. It was in this nettled state that he often left her chambers, eager to be free of her presence; to put some distance between them.

Worse than all this she was making him feel…unsettled. Initially, he'd been unable to determine what about her that made him so uncomfortable. He began to dread entering her chambers and being in her presence. His zanpakuto stirred in her presence, he felt a tingling in his chest centered in his hole.

Belatedly he recognized these sensations as hunger and having now put a name to his affliction he found that its intensity became significantly magnified. She could be a feast the likes of which he hadn't had in a very long time. The girl's soul, her spiritual pressure, indeed the very core of her powers made her a unique entity. She'd awakened in him the visceral side of his hollow. It had been years since he'd hungered for a soul. Years since he'd been afflicted with the acute, crippling starvation that his newly born brethren fell prey to. He hungered for her soul.

It was late when he visited her room next, ungodly late such that no excuse or duty could have ever had him calling on her at such an hour. At first he'd thought that he'd simply kill her and find some other thing to feed on. But upon gaining her proximity his hunger became staggering, nearly unbearable. He would do it here in the lonely hours of the night and face the wrath of Lord Aizen with the dawn's break. But she was awake and gazing at him expectantly.

"Good morning Ulquiorra, you're up early." She paused giving what he assumed was the proper amount time to provide a response before continuing on. "I had a dream. It was of Sora. In my dream he was singing. It was a song he used to sing to me when we were children. It's funny that it should come to me now." She looked up at him, "Is everything alright?"

"Come with me now." Hunger was all he could think of. _So hungry._

"Where will we be going?" she asked slipping her feet into a pair of slippers. She was too trusting of him; it almost stirred something within him akin to pity or shame. Almost.

"There is something I think you'd enjoy seeing," he replied, unable to think of a suitable excuse.

"You're so kind to think of me, Ulquiorra. Thank you." He said nothing and turned to lead her from her tower outside to the palace courtyard. He walked far into the open fields that surrounded Las Noches before he stopped and turned to her. She looked at him questioningly, but said nothing. Surely she must have some inkling of her imminent death, why was he still looking at him like that? As though this was some kind of friendly excursion. He broke gaze with her, turned his attention to the sky, and raise his finger. In the inky blackness of the night his cero stood out like a beacon. He heard her gasp as the dust began to swirl beneath her feet before they rose into the air. Together they followed the path of his cero, leaving Las Noches behind.

"Close your eyes," he said, moving in close behind her. "I will not allow you to fall." She smelled sumptuous, a soul so pure as hers—untainted. _So hungry. _

They passed through the perforated, artificial sky over Las Noches and entered the world above. He took her hand and led her away from their point of entrance.

"You may open your eyes, woman."

Of all the sights Orihime Inoue thought would greet her before she died, this was not it. This world stretched out before her in all directions unending and unyielding. And the colors! For something she never attributed to Hueco Mundo; they were everywhere around her.

The sky below the horizon was comprised of warm hues of pink, red, and orange before it collided with brilliant blues and indigos. Her gaze traveled upwards and as it did the sky transformed into an inky, fathomless black from which peaked tiny, silver beacons of light, the stars. She wondered idly if the constellations she saw now were the same as those in the world of the living.

The landscape, in contrast, stretched out below her stark and barren. It mimicked that of the world they'd just departed. The endless desert gave birth to rocky, harsh mountains. Among them broken, leaning pillars reached up as if to pierce the lustrous sky. She rotated taking in the sight from all sides, stopping when he appeared in her view.

"It's beautiful, thank you."

He continued to regard her but said nothing.

"You could have simply asked; you didn't have to do all this for me," she continued. He scoffed at the naivety of her comment, but she pressed on. "I would have given you my soul had you simply asked."

"Are you so ready to die?" he asked. Her comment surprised him but he was unwilling to let it show. He didn't want her to see how much she affected him.

"I came here to Hueco Mundo for that purpose, not to throw my life away, but so that others may live in spite of me," she paused turning her back on him to look at the sky once more. "But there is something I want from you in return."

"And what would that be?"

"Your heart."

"Ridiculous." Her eyes widened at his disdain. "You ask for something that I do not possess." He walked forward coming to rest directly in front of her. If she took a deep breath their bodies would touch.

"That's not true," she said. "When I was a child, I used to stay outside for hours waiting for Sora to come home. To pass the time I made snowbunnies, kind of like snowmen but cuter. He always used to scold me because I'd stay outside too long. I could never finish the bunnies because it got so cold my fingers wouldn't work anymore. The heart…the heart can be just like my fingers; numbed by the cold."

He placed his palm on her chest, silencing her for the moment. Her words unsettled him just like everything about her. She was too much to take in at once; too much to process and digest.

She watched him gazing down at her, watched as his riatsu spiked and his eyes lightened in color. She watched as the hole in his chest bled, as his hand dragged down her chest to wrap around her chain of fate. Her small hand covering the one on her soul chain gave him pause. "Will it hurt?" she asked.

"Close your eyes," he said. "Sometimes it helps." She smiled at him again and he felt a tightening in his gut that had nothing to with hunger. Her eyes fluttered closed and his riatsu continued to intensify taking with it her spiritual pressure, her life force, and eventually drawing out her soul. He caught her as she weakened, cradling her neck in one hand while the other remained fixed to her soul chain. She'd placed her hand against his chest in an effort to steady herself as she weakened. He was painfully aware of it, of her fingertips as they brushed edges of the void in his chest.

Her final words to him were not words of scorn as he had hoped. Anger would have been easier to accept, easier to understand. It would have reflected the weakness of character so prevalent among human beings. The words, when they came, were instead gentle whispers borne upon her last breaths, words that would make her unforgettable to him and would haunt him for the rest of his existence.

_The heart, Ulquiorra, is not always something that resides within the body. There are many things that are real that cannot be readily observed. You possess a heart; don't disregard it. Let it thaw. If nothing I've done so far has made difference in the outcome of the conflict here, then please give me some small measure of comfort. Allow me your heart. _

He saw now, understood. She never did as he thought she would even now as she lay dying in his grasp. This heart she spoke of, he saw now how it was shared, how she shared it…

He looked up finding the moon full in the sky. Yes, he supposed he could allow her the one concession.

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><p>AN:If this comes up as an update, I'm just fixing typos. I have to apologize, my first fanfic and I go and kill off Orihime. Don't let that prejudice you, I actually really like her character, there's so much potential and depth. But more importantly please, pretty please tell me what you think.


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